


Only Human

by FireSoul



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Post Season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-23 19:02:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14339007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireSoul/pseuds/FireSoul
Summary: Zari knows that Gideon is dealing after Rip's death, and she may not be good at it, but she is going to try and help.





	Only Human

Rolling onto her back for quite possibly the eighth time Zari sets her eyes onto her ceiling rather than her door, as if that’s going to make any difference. She hadn’t expected she would have this much trouble sleeping tonight, they did defeat Mallus today after all, so it’s not like she isn’t completely exhausted. But there has been something… off, around the ship, ever since they came back. Something that she’s sure the others have noticed as well but haven’t the slightest idea of how to fix.

She isn’t sure she has any idea how to fix it either, if she’s being totally honest. But if being on this ship surrounded by these people has taught her anything it’s at least taught her where to start with this particular type of problem.

“Gideon?” She calls out, mind made up, but she doesn’t get a response, something a part of her was expecting. “Gideon?”

“Yes, Miss. Tomaz?” The AI’s reply suddenly comes on the very heel of her name, and there is something in the sound of her voice. It isn’t quite the irritability that Zari is used to hearing in Gideon’s tone whenever she talks to her, but more like exasperation hiding underneath her natural chipperness.

Chewing on her lip Zari finds herself wondering, and not for the first time, if this was truly a good idea or not.

But, she ultimately decides, it’s too late to back down now.

“Can I come up?”

Her words are followed by a beat of silence, so much so she’s starting to wonder if she isn’t going to get an answer.

“I’m not sure I understand your question.” Gideon finally replies, and so Zari sighs.

“If you want,” she begins to clarify, “After I fall asleep, do you mind if I come up into your matrix?”

Another pause of silence, and this one Zari isn’t sure if it will end, if maybe she’s crossed a line. But, as it turns out, this silence doesn’t even last as long as the first one.

“I wouldn’t mind at all.”

“Great,” Zari says before settling back into her pillow and closing her eyes, only for them to pop back open as she realizes one tiny flaw in her plan. “In that case would you mind giving me something that can help me sleep?” She asks, “Otherwise we could be waiting awhile.”

 

* * *

 

Twenty minutes and one trip to the med-bay for a perfectly safe sleeping pill later and Zari is finding her eyes blinking open into a familiar state of awareness, though not consciousness. She’s still in her bedroom, something she hadn’t really been expecting, and for a second she wonders if maybe she is still awake. But that doesn’t feel right. She’s almost positive she’s in Gideon’s matrix, and she confirms that when she finally spots a familiar woman with brown hair and dressed all in black sitting on one of her beanbag chairs with her knees pulled to her chest.

Gideon is watching her, and the moment that their eyes meet she gives what Zari might classify as the most forced smile she has ever seen, before she rises to her feet.

“To what do I owe the pleasure, Miss. Tomaz?” She asks, her body stiff and a certain pain in her eyes as she stands.

Zari drops her shoulders with a resigned sigh. She doesn’t know how to do this, she isn’t qualified to do this, but considering none of the others were willing to believe her about Gideon pulling her into this matrix whilst she was in the med bay a few months ago she is pretty sure that she is the only one who knows Gideon is up here, in this form anyway. Thus she is the only person on this ship who even knows that this needs to be handled.

“How are you doing?” She finally asks and Gideon, pressing her smiling lips tightly together and crossing her arms over her chest, gives a shrug and avoids her eyes.

“I’m alright,” she insists, “Why-?”

“Gideon,” Zari finds herself interrupting in a stern voice that she hasn’t used in a long time, not since she last had someone to look out for. “Look, I know that I didn’t know him, but Rip’s sacrifice hit me too.” She says and Gideon stiffens even more at the name. “You’ve known him longer than any of us, it’s ok for you to be upset.”

For a moment she doesn’t think Gideon is going to say anything, she just stands there looking down at her feet. But then her head comes up, her eyes looking even more pained than before, but there are no tears.

“I couldn’t have stopped him.” She says, the words plain, simple, and filled with a mix of regret and anger. After that, once the words are out there, it’s like Zari is watching the other woman fall apart at the seems. She smiles despite herself and sinks back down into the beanbag, her knees folding tightly up to her chest.

“I have run through every possible scenario, thank you for that program.” Zari winces at that, even though the words do sound sincere, the reminder that Gideon isn’t talking about “what if’s” in the way that she’s used to hearing, but with absolute certainty, stings a little. “And in every single one he still chooses to sacrifice himself.”

She isn’t hesitant anymore, Zari, not now that Gideon is opening up. Feelings aren’t always her skill set, but she’s spent too much of her life living in a hopeless world to not know anything about them. She makes her way over to where Gideon is sitting and settles herself down on the edge of the beanbag, the little beads on the inside shifting with her added weight.

She places her hand onto Gideon’s back, a part of her noticing how her tank top doesn’t really feel like cloth. She doesn’t focus on that, though, she’s too busy rubbing her hand in soothing strokes across her friend’s back.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, “But he was a hero.”

“Mm,” Gideon hums in agreement, a small, genuine, smile spreading across her face. “I know.” She says, looking off towards nothing in particular, as though she’s lost in her memories. “He always was, deep down, even when he wasn’t acting like it.”

At that Zari returns her smile, especially when Gideon lolls her head up and to the side to meet her eyes. But then the other woman looks away, running her fingers through a strand of hair that is already tucked away neatly behind her ear.

“You know, you can cry Gideon.” She informs her friend, who responds with a chuckle of almost sad laughter.

“I can’t, actually.” She says and so Zari, just as her mother did for so long ago when she was barely a teenager, brings her arm further around Gideon’s shoulders to keep her close.

“Yes you can,” She insists, “Everyone cries once in awhile, it’s human-”

“Exactly,” Gideon interrupts her miniature speech, pulling away and looking back at her. “I’m not human.”

At that Zari just stares blankly, mentally kicking herself for not realizing at first what Gideon meant when she said she couldn’t cry. She thinks about the feel of her tank top, or lack of feel rather. Even her arm, it’s there and it’s solid but it doesn’t really feel like anything. There isn’t any sort of texture to it, to her. She’s here but she isn’t… she only exists like this up her, in her matrix.

She must be staring, because Gideon’s arms fold back over her chest and her knees come up so that she is essentially a sitting ball.

“Believe me, I would like for nothing more.” She eventually says, “To touch, to taste, to have tears to cry, or even just to be seen.”

Zari think on that one, remembering back to the first time she was up here. When after Gideon had had her fun with her the two of them walked around the ship and stood right over everybody else’s shoulders, them never being the wiser. She’s been wondering about that ever since that day, if Gideon walks around the ship without them realizing on a daily basis, like a ghost. She hasn’t wanted to ask, unsure of how to go about it without sounding like she’s prying. But now, it seems, she’s gotten her answer.

“But…” Gideon continues, a sigh in her voice. “There are some things that even I cannot fabricate.”

She looks up then, and Zari knows that her face must be screaming heartbreak and pity right now. She also knows that Gideon can’t feel her arm snaking back around her shoulders, can’t feel her fingers curling around her bicep as she pulls her closer, but she doesn’t care. It brings a smile to her friend’s face regardless, and that’s all that counts.

They stay like that for most of the night, not saying much, and Zari can’t say for sure when exactly she leaves but at some point she finds her eyes opening despite having no memory of closing them. Not to mention that she’s back in her bed, not halfway across the room on her beanbag, and Gideon’s human form is nowhere to be seen.


End file.
